Brett Hodgson has once again hailed the Black & Whites’ defensive efforts following last night’s victory over Wakefield Trinity at the KCOM Stadium.
Hull secured a 20-14 win over Chris Chester’s side to continue their unbeaten run in 2021, and ensure their best start to a season in over a decade.
In another game dominated by defence, a late Carlos Tuimavave try secured the points for FC after Wakefield hit back with a Mason Lino try ten minutes from time.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Hodgson said: “I’ll start by giving Gareth Ellis a big pat on the pack for the efforts he has made with improving our defensive systems.
“We showed that we were bruised and battered at times there, and I think its easy to underestimate the amount of effort that went into last week’s game against Warrington which took a lot out of us.
“With a five day turnaround, we saw that tiredness in our attack today but we worked as hard as we have at any point all year in defence.”
And Hodgson explained how hid side coped with adversity faced during the game, adding: “I’m learning plenty of things about the group every day, and today I learned we can cope with a bit of adversity, and we can come up with the right answers when we’ve got our backs against the wall.
“There were some real questions thrown our way, but we really turned up after Burtea left the field in particular and fought for each other.
“The group didn’t drop their heads at either of their big moments, at the intercept try and when Bureta got sin-binned.”
He continued: “It was a real team effort this evening – our efforts were optimized by Marc Sneyd chasing back Mason Lino when he charged down the kick to race away and score in the corner. He ensured he couldn’t score under the sticks, and from that they missed the goal. Missing that was a big moment.
“The first-half, we had 27 tackles we defended in our own twenty. I think it was similar in the second-half. They had the best of the field position, but with reduced energy levels after last week, it was probably just a case of tiredness. So we’ll get some energy back into the boys this week.”
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